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Prologue 1: The Dawn of an Era & The Verbal Gymnast
Once upon a time there were 4 little A-Level
students. We were happily studying in a quiet sixth form college
called Bay House. But then it loomed over the horizon. It was
coming, slowly but surely, and we couldn't escape it. The future was
coming. Our 7 years at Bay House (5 years at school and 2 years at
the sixth form) were coming to an end. We would soon be making big
decisions and progressing onto another major stage of our lives.
The options were being laid out before us.
There were three choices: University, Work or a Gap Year. To help us
with our decision we were presented with a range of ‘inspiring’
talks. I use quotation marks because some of the speeches were
blatantly NOT inspiring. For instance, I had always been thoroughly
impressed by the Year In Industry organisation. Until a guy gave our
year group a talk about it. We asked him what he did on his Year in
Industry. His answer can be summarised as follows:
"You can do loads of stuff on a year
in industry. Yeah. Stuff. Can’t remember what, but it was really
good. They let me go to Bilbao for a while. That was good. I drank
and did stuff. Oh yeah, that’s another thing. You get money and
stuff. I spent mine on drink. So you’ve got to be careful. Don’t
spend all your money on drink. I did and I had a good time. Oh,
I’m not supposed to tell you that. They gave me loads of
opportunities to do management courses and stuff. But I didn’t.
Dunno why. Just didn’t. Yeah the year in industry is good. Dunno
why. Dunno what you get out of it. Actually, I don’t why I did the
Year in Industry"
And so he continued. Great sales pitch. But
let me make it clear, the Year In Industry is one of the best
organisations for gap year students. Even after the astounding (not)
verbal skills of the above mentioned person, one of my best mates did
the Year In Industry and he found it to be an amazing experience
and definitely worthwhile.
Anywoo, back to the stars of this story. I was
quietly considering my options for the future. The path looked like:
A-Levels, degree, work, retire, kick the proverbial bucket. Hmm. Is
there anything else I could doe to spice up the journey of life?
What else could I do? The idea of a gap year appealed, but not work,
I'll have plenty of time to do that in the future. I know, how about
travel?! Not just a weekend in wet Brighton, but real travel.
A year exploring the far corners of the world. (The corners on the
world are very far away, I dare you to walk around a sphere until
you reach a corner!) :-)
But, the evil minions of doubt began to enter
my mind. What about uni? What about being a year behind everyone?
What if I forgot everything I'd learned? The turnpike for me was a
speech that our head of sixth form gave. She told use how she'd
recently spent a year of her career teaching in the US. Some
colleges had told her that doing this would ruin her chances of
promotion, hold back her climbing of the professional ladder. But
she decided to ignore them. She "took a chance",
and guess what. It was one of the best experiences of her life and helped
her career forward. The motto of her story was "Take a
chance. Break out of the system and do what you want to do".
So then, I decided that I would.
Next Diary Entry >>
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To know the road ahead, ask those coming back
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